Assessing the draft’s impact on fantasy football

by | May 1, 2013 | Fantasy Football, NFL Draft

NFL Network is spending all week breaking down last weekend’s draft. Analysts and experts have given out preliminary grades. But how will the picks each team made affect the fantasy football season?

Anthony Maggio, co-host of ESPN 1500‘s Fantasy Football Sunday, gave us his initial thoughts on who they should look for and who they should avoid heading into offseason training activities. Here’s what he had to say.

Zoneblitz: Last year Doug Martin, Trent Richardson and Alfred Morris were among rookie contributors at running back. Which rookie running backs will be fantasy contributors in 2013? (more…)

Barkley, Nassib become value picks for anyone

by | Apr 27, 2013 | 2013 season, NFL Draft

I have written on this site many times that if I were the general manager of an NFL team, I would take a quarterback in almost every draft whether I needed one or not.The position is too valuable to ignore, even If you have an established starter. I’m not saying it has to be a top pick. But with a third day selection, guys like Matt Barkley and Ryan Nassib become too valuable to pass up.

Think about it. Teams like Jacksonville, Arizona and Minnesota have guys they plan to start, but nobody who has played so well that they are entrenched at the spot.

Teams like Green Bay and New Orleans have elite starters but have less than settled backup situations.

And New England, whose quarterback is the poster child advertisement for why you shouldn’t discount an underwhelming college signal caller with tools, has Ryan Mallet, who they reportedly were talking just the other day about flipping for draft picks. Barkley or Nassib would immediately become the next potential young replacement for Tom Brady when he decides to call it a career.

Barkley and Nassib may never have been the first round prospects they were projected as by so many socalled experts. But in the fourth round they are tremendous values who should not last for more than a few more picks on Saturday.

Some team out there has to see these guys as what they now are: quarterbacks with tremendous upside who are available deep enough in the draft where the risk associated with taking them has already been virtually erased.

Pondering mock draft post Bucs/Jets Revis trade

by | Apr 25, 2013 | We Forgot

We were about two-thirds of the way through our Team Blogger Mock Draft when the trade between Tampa Bay and the New York Jets illustrated the complete futility of the effort by making a trade that made it obsolete.

I probably should have gone back and re-done it, but I was running out of time. So I left it as it was and moved on, but I did want to address the trade and its impact on the first round that will start now within a matter of a couple hours.

So I checked back with Joe Caporoso from Turn on the Jets and Leo Howell from the Pewter Plank to see what their first thoughts were. Both seemed fine with the moves their team had made.

Joe told me if the deal had gone down early enough that he’d had pick 13, he’d have taken Chance Warmack. That reaction both legitimized my decision to not re-do the draft, as it would have started a chain reaction starting with the very next pick at 14, and it made a lot of sense. (more…)

Why I’m already ready to hate the Chiefs’ draft

by | Apr 25, 2013 | 2013 season, NFL Draft

With the first pick in the Zoneblitz Team Blogger Mock Draft, Arrowhead Addict a week or so ago selected quarterback Geno Smith as the top overall selection.

That pick was mocked by a couple people who commented on the blog. And I’m pretty sure Patrick Allen, the senior editor at Arrowhead Addict, knew his pick wasn’t the correct one when he made it. But I think I understand at least in part why he did it.

The Chiefs have the top pick in the draft this year on the coattails of a terrible 2-14 season. The top pick in the draft is an opportunity to reinvigorate the franchise and the fan base – to give them a reason to believe this season might be different.

But with the draft a mere 10 or so hours away, I am already prepared to hate the Chiefs’ draft. Because in all likelihood, if the media reports that have been coming out over the last couple weeks are true, Kansas City will barely be any better after their first pick than they were after trading for Alex Smith shortly after the offseason started. (more…)

Happy Draft Day: Here’s a collection of mocks

by | Apr 25, 2013 | NFL Draft

As we get ready to wrap up our own mock draft and as the hours count down until the *actual* NFL draft begins, I thought it would be interesting to collect a few of the mock drafts that some of the NFL’s beat reporters have put together. So a handful of them are posted below, with links to the pages where you can read about their rationale.

The one thing that stands out to me after reading these – and after conducting our own – is that this year there is little consensus anywhere about what is going to happen, even at the top of the first round.

I’ve seen people predict as many as 10 trades in the first round alone. So the likelihood is that most of these will end up being even more useless than normal. But mock drafts seem to fascinate football fans and so, for your entertainment, here they are.

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